


Gymnophoria

by deathwailart



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Fluff, Marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-27
Updated: 2013-11-27
Packaged: 2018-01-02 19:52:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1060915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Altaïr and Maria 'reading'.  (Or Altaïr and Maria pretending to read and mentally undressing each other trying not to get caught with lots of bonus Maria headcanon.)</p>
<p>(Written for the prompt gymnophoria: the sensation that someone is mentally undressing you)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gymnophoria

Sometimes she thinks he's the most maddening man she's ever met. (And as a married woman and as a daughter then really, that's saying something.) She loves him – baffling as that may be, really their wedding was more an assemblage of who was more perplexed than the next with Altaïr blissfully unaware of that, too busy grinning at her in a way that still makes her pause no matter what she's doing – and perhaps his ability to get under her skin is part of the reason why. Malik says he a natural talent for that; she's glad she can call Malik one of her truest friends – she loves the sharp bite of his wit, the way he makes sure Altaïr remembers himself, the way he calls her sister with a smile. Masyaf would run well enough without her, she is not fool to believe that she will ever have a huge stake here where they live as men out of great tales (others would disagree, especially now that more young women appear in their ranks, emboldened by hearing tales of the master's wife who fights alongside the men) but she doubts it would run at all without Malik. It's a strange friendship, one she's heard of in fits and starts but it isn't her place to pry any more than it is Altaïr's to ask in detail about being Robert's double. They volunteer what they will with the understanding that there are parts the other won't truly comprehend.  
  
They don't complete each other, they each have a purpose of their own for that. They complement one another and that is far better in her book.  
  
Speaking of books, she chances a look up from her book then raises it to hide her smirk when she catches him looking down and to the book in his own lap. And even though she shouldn't, because it feels too silly for someone who comports herself in the manner that she does, she finds herself peering around her book to watch him. Certainly she's allowed – he's her husband but even before then they spent a great deal of time together where she was decidedly less clothed than she was happy with and he _was_ looking at her. They are equal, in all things.  
  
All things including the parts of their lives usually conducted behind locked doors to present the correct sort of front for those living in Masyaf unless it's a special occasion or either of them wanting to see how long it takes Malik to shoo them away, as if he isn't capable of being just as bad (if not worse) with his own wife. But this is what Altaïr wanted – he wanted them to have the families they never had before, his parents (father really, his mother gone before he knew her, a fact not confided to Maria until Darim was safely in her arms) a distant memory. After all, she found the sketch he made of her (attempted to steal the damn thing too) and she has to wonder when he drew it, if he thought of her that often – she hadn't wanted to want him, she remembered marriage all too well and she had come here for so many other reasons and _he_ had been the reason those had been snatched out from under her—  
  
He clears his throat quietly.  
  
Damn, she's been caught, too busy remembering silly little things so she shoots him a dirty look and returns to her reading, trying to pick up where she left off, resolutely ignoring the weight of his gaze on her. She's good at that, good at ignoring the distractions from a lifetime of not being the girl her parents wanted, the wife her husband wanted, the soldier that kept to themselves more than was normal. She has never flinched under the gaze of anyone unless it was to her own advantage to do so. She can play many roles – he knows that – but she's always been herself with him and she suspects it's why they go so well together, two people who are open and honest to one another, him leading the brotherhood but nothing more, allowing her to state her opinions when she was very much not to do so before. (Even with Robert there was the Templar agenda even though she never fought for that cause, but now, in this life, talking philosophy with the man who robbed her of the life she thought she wanted in a ship's hold, she thinks on how her dreams of glory and honour in the Holy Land were little girl dreams. Almost embarrassingly simple and yet, when he listened to her speak of them, they didn't feel that way. She doesn't know how he does it, a mentor's trick he hasn't taught her. She hopes their son – sons, really she ought to tell him soon even if they won't know for certain until their next child comes into the world – makes those around him feel the same way.)  
  
"Maria," he says, finally breaking the silence. She turns the page, continues reading and makes sure to compose her face in an even mask, as though she's so absorbed she hasn't heard him.  
  
After all, god knows he's the one guilty of that to the point he generally has to be dragged from his study by the ear at times.  
  
"Maria," he tries again, a little louder. If she strains her eyes she can see that his pretence of reading has been abandoned, his book lying open in his lap as he stares at her blatantly. The sigh when it comes is almost petulant and oh holding in the smirk is so hard that it makes her face hurt. " _Maria_ ," his voice dangerously close to an impatient whine that sounds out of place given the way he's eyeing her.  
  
"Oh honestly Altaïr, Darim has more patience and he's a child. I'm _reading_." This is very much how they can be when they're not being 'sickening' (as Malik would describe them.) Neither wanting to give in, continuing the game until one has had enough. Usually it's her, she lacks his patience – his must be fuelled by the spite it inspires within her.  
  
Today though he's the one who breaks first, tossing his book onto the desk with a heavy thump before crossing the room, not to take hers as imagined but to lock the door before he gives her a grin that the novices have no idea their Grand Master is capable of making.  
  
"If your book is truly so engrossing then I will prove no distraction," he murmurs, bending forward to kiss her before he drops to his knees.  
  
She's really going to have to step up her game now.


End file.
